FTC shoots down Net Neutrality, says it is not needed — The Federal Trade Commission today dealt a serious blow to "Net Neutrality" proponents as it issued a report dismissive of claims that the government needs to get involved in preserving the fairness of networks in the United States.

Pownce Is Alive! — Today we're turning on the splash page of Pownce, a side project that I've been working on with some friends over weekends for the last few months. The site isn't quite open to the public yet, but if you want to try it out, enter your email and we'll get an invite out to you shortly.

First look at Pownce — Kevin Rose, of Digg and Revision 3 fame, just launched an invite-only alpha of his latest project, Pownce. Pownce lets you share files, links, and other info with your friends. It's not an original concept. Yet Pownce makes an extremely good first impression.

Welcome to Feedster, Version 2.0! — We've just completed a site redesign here at Feedster that includes a few feature changes: — To start with the obvious, the site looks completely different. When comparing the old with the new, it's quite apparent that we decided to keep only the name from the old design.

Google Desktop goes Linux — Google was set to launch late on Wednesday a beta version of Google Desktop search for Linux in a sign of encouragement by the search giant for Linux on the desktop. — Google Desktop allows people to search the Web while also searching the full text …

Reinventing HOTorNOT, Part I — Ever since I came back to HOTorNOT in October 2006, people have been asking me what the company is up to. For the previous 6 years, HOTorNOT had pretty much been steady along the same course: A picture rating site with a dating-like application built on top …

Google's Marissa Mayer on The Future of Search — Written by Nitin Karandikar; all photos by Jeremiah Owyang — The highlight of the Searchnomics 2007 conference today was a keynote, at the very end, by Marissa Mayer, Vice President, Search Products & User Experience at Google.

Nielsen Adds to Cellphone Tracking — CELLPHONES are rapidly becoming ubiquitous and the Nielsen Company, the longtime monitor of television consumption, wants in. — Nielsen said yesterday that it had agreed to acquire Telephia, a private company based in San Francisco, for an undisclosed amount.

EuroFroth — Last month, a couple hundred techies and entrepreneurs from all around Europe gathered at the Teatro Principal, an 18th-century baroque theater in Zaragoza, Spain. The city is best known for its historical architecture, including Roman ruins and a Moorish palace …

Often-Asked iPhone Questions — With its new iPhone, Apple pulled off two masterful feats: creating the machine and creating the buzz around it. — That machine, and that buzz, have inspired a lot of questions. Just how much of a phone, an iPod and an Internet machine is this thing?